Crumbling Kolkata

We crossed the border from Nepal to India by pony and trap, and had the pleasure of staying the night in a grotty hole called Raxaul. This place is like hell. Foggy, dusty, sleazy disapproving men everywhere and chickens being slaughtered at the side of the road. We couldn’t get on the train to Kolkata fast enough.

I was right about the heat. Koltaka is like a sauna, muggy and damp even when the sun isn’t out. Finding a hotel room has been a pain – for some reason we thought we could do better than the nice, clean air conditioned one we booked – we wanted something cheaper and more central and moved into one with rotting walls, a leaking air conditioner and snooty staff. We moved back quickly to the nice place.

All of Kolkata is rotting with damp. It looks cool on the crumbling colonial buildings with trees growing out of their sides, but not next to your pillow. It’s like nature is taking over and there’s nothing the city can do about it. Once we’d settled, we actually got to explore the city and found it quite lovely. The architecture is wicked and the people are friendly once you get away from Shudder Street.

Everywhere you turn you might trip over a bony man with a wise old face, squatting on the floor mending shoes or chopping cucumbers. Either that, or a group of skinny boys shooting heroin in the gutter. But with the honky yellow taxis and grand old buildings, there’s lots to like about it.

Having said that, after a nasty incident with a cockroach and some inedible food, on Friday night we retreated to a cold, clean shopping mall to watch Alice in Wonderland and eat Subway among the cute well-dressed Kolkatans out on dates or family trips. We felt a bit scruffy but relieved to not be reduced to sweating rag-dolls on the floor every ten minutes.

So today Abi and Chris are arriving for a three week holiday, from here to Bangladesh and back again.